The Inward Spiral
by Pacifica
Summary: Severus Snape receives notification of his parent's death and must return home to face his past. Rating may go up in later chapters.
1. Ill Tidings

Dear Professor,  
  
I know that you are a private man and not accustomed to receiving post, especially not that of a friendly nature. However, I write today, the bearer of bad news. I like the job not, but I feel it is my duty given the circumstances of the past seven or so years of my life.  
  
Many years ago we knew each other. Time out of mind, it seems, these days. I hardly expect you to remember the days of your childhood. Mine, however, haunt me with a vengeance. I can recall with great clarity the home of my youth. It was a self-effacing little cottage well off the beaten path. Two bedrooms, a kitchen, a den. But its greatest glory, to me at least, was the barn out back. I kept two horses there, all through my years, and I used to have only one partner to ride with.  
  
A grumpy boy my age, he was raised a stone's throw from my yard. His home was immaculate. The opposite of everything we had. A great stone manor, it was. Snape manor. Your home. I suspect your memory is coming back to you now. How you used to come out on summer days and we would ride the entire day away, exploring parts of the wilderness of southern Scotland that we were sure no mortal had ever set foot upon before.  
  
That's right. It's me. Petra Antonia. All grown up. I still live in the cottage, though I do so alone these days. Mother and father passed on five years ago, here in this very house. I returned here almost eight years ago to care for them, in their declining health. It wasn't long after I returned that I became reacquainted with your parents.  
  
I nursed my parents for three years, but eventually death overcomes us all. My father went first, followed only three days later by my mother. Your parents were very kind to me, though their health was slipping as well. They took over wonderfully and everything was taken care of, thanks to them. Mum and dad are peaceful, buried beside the stream that runs behind the pasture. I'm sure you remember it.  
  
In any case, I remained here. I bought another pair of horses - Percherons, this time. Great fun to ride. I never broke contact with your parents. And over the past few years I found their health declining as well. I took care of them as I cared for my own mother and father. You can be assured that they wanted for nothing and felt no discomfort. But alas, no one can stop death when it comes.  
  
They have passed, Severus. At ten o'clock this morning I went to check on them and found them. They went silently - comfortably. In bed. In each other's arms.  
  
I know you haven't spoken to them in years. They told me everything about your past. The row that you had the year you graduated. I'd wondered why you never came home for a single holiday. I hope you won't allow that to deter you to coming and helping to settle their affairs. You don't need to fear me. You were always guarded and reclusive. I can respect that. I won't ask a friendship of you now, if you don't want it. But for the sake of your inheritance, at the very least, come and settle things. I haven't the first idea where to begin and the ministry is already sniffing around, looking to see what they can claim by way of unpaid taxes, etc.  
  
Come home. I've made your room up for you just as it was when you lived here. I can't take care of this myself.  
  
Deepest Regrets,  
Petra Antonia 


	2. An Unhappy Reunion

~*Author's Note*~ I have updated this chapter as of 11/4/03. My deepest apologies for the slip up in POV at the very beginning. You know how it is when you get into a story. You sometimes forget your grammar in your fervor to relate your tale. In any case, besides the revision of the POV error, I have made a few minor syntactical and grammar revisions as well. Happy reading all.  
  
The house looks the same as it did a thousand years ago. The stone that lines the entire exterior turret and foundation was pulled by the earliest patriarchs of the Snape clan from the creek that runs behind it. The outer walls are pitch and timber, also gathered from the woods that surround the place. The roof, original thatch, has yet to spring a leak. It must have taken years to make this place look the way it does now. It is truly a testament to the ingenuity of the Snapes.  
  
It is small. Though it is indeed a manor, it is in no way obscene in its size. It's value lies in its intricacy, for a finer cottage one could not get even from Aladdin's genie. You frown at how much your parents were akin to the Weasleys. Their home is a hodgepodge, and a cramped one at that. Trinkets and doodads from around the world adorn every wall, every shelf, every nook. Not a cranny is left unstuffed with junk. Not even a matching dish in the place, though when put out together each piece looks as if it belongs right where it sits.  
  
It is annoying in it's coziness. There is no taste, no class about the place. And yet, it feels more like home than even Hogwarts has come to feel. So you walk up the front pathway, large enough for a horse and carriage but certainly not for today's ostentatious muggle automobiles, and marvel at how much Merlin must hate you. Every pine bough drips rain on you, making your already thin and shiny hair even more limp and oily looking. Well, maybe not oily. Inky, more like. In any case, you've reached the stone entrance and for some odd reason you're struck with the impulse to knock before you enter.  
  
Your hand stops just before you reach the iron knocker. Instead you reach into the vast expanse of your hip pocket and pull out a ring of keys. Hold them out in your hand. They haven't been there in at least ten years. Fifteen, probably. How strange it feels to be back here. The rain pounding down on your head makes the lantern hanging beside the door flicker in its glass hurricane. It makes the keys almost slip out of your hands as you slide them into the lock and turn it. It makes you steam as you step inside to find the place not cold and dead, as you expected it, but warm and very much alive.  
  
Throw the keys on the hallway table. In the glass dish from Transylvania. Just like a thousand times before, only so much like the first time you'd swear you were eleven years old again, coming home from Hogwarts to find mum and dad off on some surprise holiday.  
  
Sniff the air. It smells like cinnamon. All the candles and sconces are lit. The fireplaces too. Someone certainly wanted this homecoming to be a happy one. Take off your traveling cloak, it's making you sweat, and hang it on the coat rack. Your scarf too. Gloves come off next. Just like a thousand times before. Set them beside the keys. You're home.  
  
Funny it's so silent. Did Petra just prepare the house and then leave? Certainly she wouldn't have left the fires burning like this. You marvel at how much you really had hoped to see her tonight. Though she irritates you to the very core, at least it would have been better than coming home to the house empty. Ah well. Sad hours seem long, so you may as well meander on into the kitchen and fix a cuppa to go with whatever wonderful cinnamon confection she's left to spread its scent throughout the house, tantalizing you. You'd never, after all, touch the rubbish they sell on the Express or on the muggle rail system. You're not even entirely sure it's real food. Your stomach growls in agreement.  
  
Pass up the stairs and the family room. Head straight for the kitchen. A small, black, iron cauldron hangs idly in the fireplace, awaiting your return. A mug - your favorite mug as a child - sits beside the fireplace, which rests underneath a charming brick archway. The embers glow, just enough to keep the water you're sure is in the cauldron warm until you can make use of it. Eleven cinnamon raisin scones rest on a clear glass dish beside the mug. A ball strainer full of black tea is already resting inside the cup. She expected you tonight.  
  
"I know you said you'd be here in the morning," she says from the darkness just beyond the doorway, in the dining room. "But I knew you'd be here tonight."  
  
"Clever as always."  
  
"Not clever. Just intuitive. How was the trip?"  
  
"Dreadful. But thankfully quiet." Go on making your tea. And small talk. Perhaps if you can keep her occupied with small talk the conversation won't turn to the dreaded topic of how you're feeling.  
  
"So how are you feeling?" Blast.  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Liar."  
  
"You know me better than that."  
  
"Aye. But it was worth a shot." Merlin, she hasn't lost her Scottish accent. You, on the other hand, have taken up a much softer dialect.  
  
"Aye. A shot and a miss."  
  
"Your accent is changed. A lot about you has changed."  
  
She steps forward into the warm light of the kitchen. A lot about her has changed as well. You stop, involuntarily, to gaze at her, for it is all you can do. The change is magnificent. Though she was a woman when you left for the last time - almost twenty years old, in fact - you had never noticed what an alluring woman she had become.  
  
Your memories of her are a too-thin girl with skinny legs, skinnier arms, hair that never seemed to be styled, and clothes that looked as though they had been handed down from her father. What stands before you now is quite possibly the closest thing any mortal man will ever come to Venus herself.  
  
Her hair is still that rich chestnut blonde, but rather than frizzy and unkempt it is wavy, pure silk, and pulled back into a loose ponytail. Her skin is still the palest white you've ever seen, and looks as if it belongs to a Scandinavian princess. Her eyes are still a cold, icy green. Mint. Her features are entirely Norse, and she wears a robe that looks as if it's come straight from ancient Rome. Petra Antonia. All grown up.  
  
She watches you studying her. She knows exactly what you're thinking. You can be sure of it.  
  
"You never answered my question," she continues, crossing in front of me and taking a scone from the dish. She leans up against the counter. The better to watch you as she eats.  
  
"Which question?"  
  
"How are you feeling?" She takes a pinch of scone between her first finger and thumb and slides it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully and inspecting the rest of the scone interestedly. Still she won't make eye contact with you.  
  
"I did answer that question. I told you I was fine."  
  
"Yes but lies don't count."  
  
Silence. And then she breaks it again. You thought you remembered something in her letter about not pestering you for a friendship.  
  
"How is the castle?"  
  
"The castle is the castle, Petra. Why all the silly questions?"  
  
"Just asking," she answers, sulking and walking back into the dining room. You hear her pull a chair out from the table and sink into it moodily.  
  
Sigh. In a lot of ways, Petra is like a little sister. Or a twin sister. Petra never got to go to Hogwarts. She received her letter. In fact the headmaster at the time had wanted her badly. She was almost as much of a celebrity, at least in academia, as Harry Potter is now. She was the only witch of the time that could cast magic without a wand. It literally flowed from her fingertips.  
  
Pour some water into your cup and grab a scone. This is going to be a long night. Take a seat across from her. Feel how pregnant the silence is between you. You each have volumes you could speak. Yet each waits for the other to begin. Stubborn. The both of you are stubborn as mules. Only Petra has already made an attempt, so it is rightfully your turn at this point.  
  
"Petra, I -"  
  
"Save it."  
  
Okay. Obviously Petra hasn't finished making her attempt. Sit back in your chair and eat your scone. She must have something more she wants to say.  
  
"Look, I don't know where you've been or what you've been doing for the past Merlin knows how long. But I do know that while you were gone I was here. I stayed with my parents until they died. I stayed with yours. I don't do this for a living. I don't enjoy taking care of other people's skeletons."  
  
"Petra, you don't know the entire story. You don't know -"  
  
"I know that for the last days of her life your mother -" she bites her lip to hold back a sob. Same old Petra. Won't cry in front of you if you sever her leg. "Your mother cried for hours on end, wishing you would come back. Just to be with her. To hold her fucking hand."  
  
"Why didn't you write me sooner?" Look at your scone. That's all you can do because you can't look at her and the thoughts of food suddenly turn your stomach.  
  
"She wouldn't let me." Her words are hisses by now. You almost have to be Parseltounge to understand her. "Pride. All of you Snapes. You just can't swallow your damned pride."  
  
You think of your students. How they stare at their desks and try to blink back tears when you berate them. Especially the girls. That's exactly the way you feel right now. As if you're sitting before the ultimate judge while he calls out your each and every sin for all the world to hear. You didn't know. If only you had known. If only word, even the slightest hint, would have come that they wanted you back you would have run to them in a heartbeat.  
  
"But it's too late now," you whisper to the scone. To the table. To Petra. To yourself. Lightening strikes outside and the rain pelts harder against the leaded windows. You're home. 


End file.
